VLC Beta for Android Adds Experimental Chromecast Support

11 months ago

The developers behind popular media player VLC recently pushed out an update to the app’s Play Store beta channel, and it’s a doozy. The newest Android beta (version 2.9.0) comes with a lot of features and changes, the most significant of which is experimental support for Chromecast.

Google struck gold with Chromecast, an HDMI streaming dongle that lets you wirelessly cast videos and music to your TV. The company has sold 55 million units as of October 2017, and while the technology has undergone a few rebrands, the underlying idea remains the same: Incredibly easy media streaming (or “casting”) from one device to another over a local network.

Chromecast support has become something of a requirement for media player apps, and it’s a feature that the VLC community has been asking about for quite some time. While the current implementation isn’t completely stable yet, the latest VLC Beta update for Android adds a fully functional Chromecast menu to the app’s main screen and video player. Tapping on the icon brings up a list of Chromecast-compatible devices, as you’d expect.

Via: Droid-Life

Experimental Chromecast support is only one of the new features included in the latest VLC Beta for Android update, though. It also adds support for playlist files detection, an option to disable subtitles from automatically loading, bug fixes for file deletion on Android Oreo, support for Chromebooks and Samsung’s Dex dock, and more.

Here’s the full changelog:

VLC Beta 2.9.0 changelog

Playlist files detection

Faster seek

SDCard files deletion

Fixed deletion on Oreo

Option to disable subs auto-loading

Fixed artists/Album classification

Chromebook and Samsung DeX support

Misc. fixes

To enroll in the beta, download VLC from the Play Store. Then head to the signup page and select Become a tester, and in the next few hours, the app will automatically update to the latest beta version.